


How (or, We Will Meet Again)

by EternalSoldierKasumi



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Inspired by Music, M/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-14
Packaged: 2017-12-23 12:44:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EternalSoldierKasumi/pseuds/EternalSoldierKasumi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They must have known it was coming, this day, this goodbye. There was no avoiding it; Carlos couldn't stay in Night Vale forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How (or, We Will Meet Again)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Welcome to Night Vale fic. It's funny how quickly I got into this fandom. I only started listening to it a little over a week ago, and already I have listened to every episode several times, I have an OTP, that OTP is canon, I am having feels, and I am writing fanfiction.
> 
> This might be a problem.
> 
> Anyway, this was inspired by the song "How" by Regina Spektor, from her album What We Saw From the Cheap Seats. It's a great album, and I really recommend it. I've been listening to it nonstop since I bought it.
> 
> Well, enjoy!

**How**

 

They must have known it was coming, this day, this goodbye. There was no avoiding it; Carlos couldn’t stay in Night Vale forever.   
As much as he was accustomed to the dark, ethereal town, as much as he enjoyed being able to see how the town ticked, as much as he loved Cecil…he was from Outside. He had family, and friends, and, as much as he hated it, he had employers, and those employers wanted to send him to some other lab. It didn’t really matter where—Somewhere in New England, he thought—because he wouldn’t be in Night Vale. And since no resident could leave the city, he wouldn’t be with Cecil.

Carlos had gotten the call from his company one Thursday morning, just before Cecil would have come in to pry his lover away from work for a slice of pizza at Rico’s, and had felt the bottom of his world dropping out. He had kept it together throughout the call, but as soon as he hung up, he was shaking with sobs. By the time Cecil had arrived, he had stopped crying and forced himself to look presentable, although his eyes were still red and puffy. When the radio host pointed this out, Carlos shrugged him off.  
“I got something in my eyes earlier today. I’m fine, though, don’t worry,” he said, giving his lover a gentle smile, which was easily reciprocated. They laced their fingers together and walked out of the lab.

At lunch, though, Carlos told him over a tray of non-wheat-or-wheat-by-product cheese pizza and two glasses of Diet Coke. The look on Cecil’s face…oh how he wanted to forget that. It made his stomach churn, threatening to reject the pizza that tasted like sawdust anyway.  
“You’re…not serious, right?” Cecil’s voice was cracked and squeaky, a few pitches higher than his normal voice, and much, much higher than his radio voice. He looked like you could tap his shoulder, and he would shatter like glass.  
“Cecil, I’m sorry. I am so, so, so sorry,” Carlos murmured, reaching across the table for the other’s hand. Cecil jerked away from him and shook his head.  
“No. No, Carlos, please. Please, this isn’t funny. This is a horrible joke, and it’s not funny. You’re not really leaving me all alone. This is a joke. It…it has to be.”  
“Cecil, it’s not a joke. Oh God, Cecil, I’m sorry. I tried to reason with my bosses, but they’re convinced that I was sent here against my will, and they think they’re doing me a favor—“  
“Is that what this is about?” Cecil sounded like he was close to hysterics.   
Carlos, not wanting to cause a scene, stood up, grabbed Cecil, and pulled him outside the restaurant onto the sidewalk.  
“Cecil, it’s not about anything. I—I don’t know what I can do. I tried talking to them, really I did, and I don’t want to lose you, that’s about the worst possible thing I could ever think would happen…” He caught himself before he could go into full-on babbling. He sighed and leaned forward, resting his head on Cecil’s shoulder. “Let’s talk about this more at home. Look, let’s go inside and finish lunch, I’ll call into work, and we can spend the rest of the afternoon talking about this. We’ll get it all sorted out, and you’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. You can go into your show tonight all upbeat and smiling and professional like you always do.” When Cecil said nothing, Carlos took that as an agreement.

Carlos unlocked the door to his apartment and let Cecil go in first. The radio host had his arms wrapped around himself, and he made a beeline for the living room couch while the scientist went to the kitchen to make tea for them. Strong and black for him; weak, sugary, and peppermint for Cecil. He brought the two piping hot mugs and set them down.   
Cecil smiled a little at the mug in the scientist’s hand. The mug had been a Christmas present from Cecil--even though the residents of Night Vale were mostly godless demons and did not actually celebrate Christmas for the birth of Jesus, but rather for the municipally mandated commercialism—and had a picture of a faked element from the periodic table which read “Ah!”, the caption being “The element of surprise”. When Carlos had seen it, unwrapped from its prison in pink-and-green striped tissue paper and a bag with a pop-up picture of a cartoony Santa Claus blowing a kiss, he had laughed so hard that he dropped the mug onto the couch and doubled over into Cecil’s lap with joy. The mug itself hadn’t been that funny, but the presentation, and the fact that Cecil had shown just how well he knew his partner, had made him ten different flavors of happy that shouldn’t have been possible for a thirty-something.  
That had been an amazing day. They had spent the night together, walking through the town as they talked about snow, and imagined the streets covered in the white flakes. Cecil had made a joke about snow being God’s dandruff, and the lack of that God’s presence here was the reason that it never snowed. Carlos had laughed softly, his eyes crinkling at the corners and his nose scrunching the way it did when he smiled.

When Carlos smiled at Cecil on the couch, though, Christmas mug warming his hands, his nose didn’t scrunch, and Cecil knew he was faking it.  
“Don’t do that, Carlos,” he said. The smile left, being replaced by a softened look of surprise and confusion, along with a bit of adoration.  
“Do what?”  
“That…fake smiling thing. You don’t have to fake anything. You know that.”  
“Yeah.” Carlos sighed. “Yeah, Ceece, I know.”  
Another few minutes of silence as the scientist stared into his untouched mug of tea, and the radio host stared at the trees out the window. Cecil broke the silence first.  
“You…you’re going to write me and call me and text me and…and you’re not going to forget me, right?” His voice was quivering the way it had been in Big Rico’s Pizza, and Carlos looked up at him, the profile of the man that had so quickly become the most important part of his life. Cecil had a shaped jaw that transitioned into a squared-off chin, high cheekbones dotted with a few light freckles, deep temples that connected flawlessly to dark eyebrows and violet eyes that seemed almost luminescent, even in the dark of the bedroom as they would lay in passion. Everyone in Night Vale knew how perfect the radio man thought Carlos was, but very few knew that Carlos was convinced that Cecil was the perfect one.  
He didn’t know why he was struck so suddenly by Cecil’s face; after all, he had seen it many, many times, in many different expressions, and he had seen this same, stoic face before. But here he was, speechlessly staring at the other and drinking in every detail. He couldn’t help himself but reach out to touch his cheek, turning his face to they were eye-to-eye.  
“Cecil, I would never forget you. How could I? I’ll never forget you, or this place, and I don’t know how I’ll be able to get back into the normal world after getting a taste of Night Vale.”

He expected his heartfelt words to bring some sort of smile to Cecil’s face, but his only reaction was pulling his face away and standing up, going over to the stereo in the corner of the room and kneeling down before Carlos’ extensive collection of CDs and records from Outside. He pulled out a random CD, not even bothering with the artist or titled or anything, just needing some sort of relief from the achingly quiet room. The music started playing, and he stood up. The first song was a piano-heavy piece with a coffee-house feeling to it, a pretty, but nasally, female voice singing something about a small town and moons.  
“Regina Spektor,” Carlos observed. “Good choice.” Cecil nodded, not really wanting to admit that he didn’t know who that was, and had chosen the music at random just to fill the silence.

It didn’t help their broken conversation at all.  
They still sat, tea mugs full and becoming cold, knees touching, eyes averted. The music kept playing as neither man said anything, until a beautifully slow song came on, and Carlos smiled softly. He set his mug on the side table and stood up as the woman’s voice started.

_How can I forget your love?_  
How can I never see you again?  
There’s a time and place  
For one more sweet embrace.  
And is time, ooh,  
When it all, ooh,  
Went wrong.  
I guess you know by now  
That we will meet again somehow. 

Carlos held out his hand to the other man.  
“Cecil, c’mere,” he murmured, smiling gently as a pale hand hesitantly clasped his darker-toned own. With an easy pull, Cecil was in Carlos’ arms, and they were swaying to the music.

_Oh baby_  
How can I begin again?  
How can I try to love someone new?  
Someone who isn’t you?  
How can our love be true,  
When I’m not, ooh,  
I’m not over you? 

“C-Carlos, we’re grown men, this isn’t…” Cecil started, but stopped when he heard a soft hum coming from the taller man. He was humming along to the music, his eyes closed as he swayed with the tune, keeping a firm hold on Cecil’s waist and hand. He kept this up for a while, humming along, the beautiful song and his beautiful voice becoming one. He soon was singing along to the song, his voice lower and smokier than is was when he spoke.

_I guess you know by now  
That we will meet again somehow._

_Time can come and take away the pain,_  
But I just want my memories to remain,  
To hear your voice,  
To see your face.  
There’s not one moment I’d erase.  
You are a guest here now. 

Cecil found himself almost in a trance by the sound of Carlos’ singing. (he should know, he’d been in trances before.) Part of him found it surprising that the tan-skinned male could sing, but the other part thought, of course he could sing. He was perfect, perfect Carlos, and this just one more thing he could do amazingly that made Cecil wonder what special god he had sold his soul to in order to become so, so…perfect.  
He rested his head on Carlos’ shoulder, and let him move them to the music, just content to be in the moment with the man he loved, listening to him sing, being close to him in a way that almost transcended any physicality, and was no longer a slow dance of their bodies, aging and stressed and occasionally breaking, but of their souls, still young and vibrant and ready to jump out a window in the middle of the night to sneak off into the town and just be together.

_So baby_  
How can I forget you love?  
How can I never see you again?  
How can I ever know  
Why some stay and others go?  
When I don’t, ooh,  
I don’t want you to go. 

Cecil raised his head when something in Carlos’ voice changed, becoming softer, sweeter, like he wasn’t just singing the song, but singing it to Cecil. The two locked eyes, and the scientist had a small, gentle smile on his face, the look in his eyes making the radio host want to melt into a worshipping puddle at the other’s feet.  
Oh, he was definitely singing to Cecil now.

_I guess I know by now  
That we will meet again somehow._

_Time can come and wash away the pain,_  
But I just want mine to stay the same,  
To hear your voice,  
To see your face.  
There’s not one moment I’d erase.  
You are a guest here now. 

_So baby,_  
How can I forget your love?  
How can I never see you again? 

The song ended, but Carlos kept singing, leaning forward so his lips brushed against Cecil’s ear, sending embarrassing shudders across the host’s body.

_I guess I know by now  
That we will meet again somehow._

He kept humming this line over and over again until it seemed ingrained in Cecil’s mind, as if every memory of Carlos would forevermore contain the background music of his tenor voice singing sweet promises into his ear.  
Somehow, he thought, they would meet again. They had to. Fate doesn’t just bring people together this way and tear them apart without planting in them a deep desire to reunite, to see that other half of themselves just one more time, once more to see them and hold them and kiss them and hear their voice, oh please, just one more time and I’ll be satisfied.  
Carlos pulled away as the song changed to a more upbeat song, apparently about rowboats and oil paintings. Before he could completely move away, Cecil threw his arms around his neck and pressed their lips together desperately. Carlos kissed back without a moment’s notice, pulling the other hastily into his bedroom, clothes materializing on the floor along the way somehow.

Carlos was the first to wake up, Cecil’s head on his bare shoulder, his own head resting against Cecil’s, their hands intertwined between them. A soft, quiet moment. He wondered, softly, quietly, if they would ever have any more moments like this. One glance down at the sleeping face of his lover, so smoothed and peaceful, his bare chest rising and falling in a perfect rhythm, and he knew his answer. It would kill both of them to be apart, he knew that.   
So he moved away from the other warm body, muttering a quiet apology as the other curled up in the space Carlos had just been in, as if searching for him. He pressed a kiss to the top of Cecil’s head and stood up, pulling on his boxers and searching for his phone, which was on the ground next to his pants in the corner of the room. He dialed a well-rehearsed number, and walked out into the living room, shutting the door so Cecil wouldn’t hear him.

“Yes, hello, sir. It’s me. I just called to tell you that I’m declining your offer to move me. I’m perfectly happy in Night Vale. I’ll see you at the company picnic.”


End file.
